


The Mesmerist

by NumerousInterests



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Antlers are scary bro, Gen, Hallucinations, Hypnosis, Hypnotism, Suffer Charlie SUFFER
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:35:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24878566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NumerousInterests/pseuds/NumerousInterests
Summary: Charlie has had enough of Alastor's services and wants him to leave. But maybe there's a way for Alastor to change her mind...
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	The Mesmerist

The perpetual red of hell came through the long windows as they stood in the back-room, surrounded by gothic furniture and storage items that had been piled out of the way of guests. There were many abandoned objects as the hotel had enough fantastical decor crowding it already. The blonde gestured emphatically as the taller being listened.

"Look," Charlie exclaimed, "I'm sorry, but you can't say I didn't give you a chance!" She started at a sudden noise from Alastor's one-eyed amplifier at the end of his cane. The princess hugged herself and swallowed after the shrill interruption, as the Radio Demon loomed over her. Charlie wondered from the glint in his eye, if she should've had Vaggie downstairs to assist with chucking the showman outside. She had just about sweated herself a river when Alastor snapped out of his sinister reverie.

"Well, that was quite the list of reasons to end our partnership!" He remarked with his frozen smile. As he readjusted his monocle the blonde regained her courage. She frowned and crossed her arms. "All of them were very good reasons." She said stiffly. "My dear," Alastor sighed before continuing with a melodramatic weight to his voice, "All that you have laid before me has broken my heart!" Charlie was not feeling brave enough to dispute his having one. "I put everything into this hotel, despite our differing philosophies." He lamented, "But, if your valued opinion of me has fallen as low as you have said..." He averted his gaze with an upraised hand. "...then I will go!"

Charlie was surprised. She'd been expecting bad things after that foreboding silence. "Great! Whew." The princess grinned, "Thank you for all your time! This was, um, certainly an experiment, heh, heh..." But the antlered gentleman remained where he was. He folded his arms behind his back and widened his relentless show of teeth. "If I could make a single, farewell request your Highness..." He rasped, leaning forward. Lucifer's daughter shivered. "Er, sure, if it's a small favour." She stammered, "I mean, I guess it's the least I could do-" "Then allow me!" She started at Alastor's jovial outburst as he narrowed the gap between them.

"let me look upon you," He cried, "One last time my dear former associate!" With that, he slid a claw neatly under Charlie's chin, tilting her head up. Charlie raised a brow as she looked up into Alastor's beaming face. She then blinked at something unfolding in his eyes; two gradual swirling patterns of red and pink were developing round his slitted irises. The princess felt drawn to the fascinating spirals. There was a pleasing sensation in her stomach as those soothing circles rolled one after another. Charlie was vaguely aware of the microphone crackling with the sound of a stirring studio audience. Alastor rose above the commotion of his item as the invisible gathering's host.

"As you can see, ladies and gentlemen," He chattered with performative vigour, "this weeks eager, hell-born heroine has found herself quite incapable of progressing through this palpitating story!" Charlie felt numb to the taunting of Alastor's words and the accompanying laugh track recording. "We can only hope..." He went on as the whirlpool of his gaze still held her, "...that she'll be taking this brief intermission as an opportunity to reflect upon any previous decisions she has made! But before such worthy reassessments..." She felt sharp points dig into her shoulders, but did not react. "Our lead appears to have been overcome with an unbearable longing for respite. Quite all of a sudden she is tired..." Alastor trailed off before softly repeating: "So very, very tired..."

The all-encompassing pattern was giving way to the princesses lowering eyelids. She knew herself to be swaying on the spot, her legs growing weak. She was passive towards the coming darkness. Charlie sensed a low, audio buzzing like white noise, flooding her ears like a lulling sea....

There was a flash and a bang. Charlie shouted in surprise, her eyes wide open in time to register Alastor's startled expression and the room's interior, before it all went black. She'd plopped herself down on the carpet, and was still reeling when she heard the radio personality clapping his hands. The lights were restored, presumably thanks to Alastor's magic. The blonde breathed heavily holding her head as Alastor tutted pleasantly to himself. "Ah, the ever-wavering power-stations of Hell! Tonight's workers clearly haven't been whipped enough..."

Charlie brought her fingers to her nose and drew them back to find blood on them. She stared at the wet tips and trembled. Charlie heard Alastor moving, and scooted backwards on her rear, not daring to look at him directly. "That... that was..." She scrambled to her feet, obscuring her face with one arm, "Hypnotism! Fucking hypnotism!" Alastor hummed without comment. "I have had it with your... voodoo bullshit!" She made a break for the wide double doors. "Uh, uh, uh..." The Radio Demon lilted darkly.

Charlie squealed as she felt something cold sliding past her. She stopped and gasped at the grinning shadow before her, as it cocked its head independently of its master. The silhouette then grasped the door handles firmly, barring her escape. The princess panicked. She turned to the far left and dived down between the beast-footed legs of an old sofa. Charlie then swiftly disappeared into a hill of large antiques.

"Charlie, sweetheart, if I could have a word." The smaller demon glanced behind her at the sight of Alastor's shoes, before wriggling deeper into the security of tangled legs, velvets and various undersides. "Back off, Al!" She snapped. "I knew you could be bad, but I thought you could at least leave people to the dignity of having their own minds!" Her heart was racing. but her fears of the performer or his shadow crawling in after her, had not been realised. Perhaps Alastor felt that pursuing on all fours was beneath him.

"Such a hysterical performance! You can't proceed in this business of yours if you can't learn to rein it in when it counts." Charlie couldn't help being angered by his casual tone. "This hotel isn't a stage for your machinations Al!" She hollered back over her shoulder. "Oh, this venue has been pantomime from the very beginning my dear." He sniffed dismissively, "And you need me here to..." His voice lowered rather disconcertingly, "...shake things up."

"S-someone will come down to investigate at some point!" Charlie said loudly for her own self-assurance, "Angel or someone else... then you'll be in trouble!" The princess heard Alastor laugh as she reached the end of the storage-item tunnel. She'd been hoping to find a vent. But the scant bit of wall that was visible to her was smooth.

She curled herself up and tightened her fists. An eerie silence pervaded as Charlie tried to digest what had happened. A dreadful notion came into her head, stirring her insides; Could the entertainer have ever hypnotised her before, without her realising? The royal thought back to Alastor's quirky self-introduction at the door, when he had taken her hand in greeting, only to seemingly slip and pull her face into direct contact with his. Could he have embedded something in her mind then, at a mere glance?

Maybe not. It could have been reflex. After all, from the fiction Charlie had read, a hypnotist didn't have to keep labouring to entrance a victim from scratch. Once a trigger had been established all they had to do was... snap their fingers or something. So he wouldn't have had to captivate her the way he had just attempted, right? Regardless, it was vital for her to keep out of Alastor's way until help came. Charlie tried to shake off the creepy feeling of Alastor still being somewhere in that back-room with her.

...

Lucifer's daughter shifted in the cramped space, and wiped her nose to clear the remaining blood. She tensed at an eventual shuffling, and double-took at what sounded like a door closing. But Charlie stayed where she was. The royal couldn't possibly believe that Alastor had given up. She rested her chin on the ground. No doubt the Radio Demon would be hiding in another room, or upstairs, waiting for her to...

She heard the delayed creaking of the door reopening. Her pulse thudded in anticipation. She pushed herself up on her elbows, straining to listen more intently. "Charlie...?" Charlie exhaled slowly at the sound of her girlfriends' voice. "Hey," Vaggie called again, "is anybody in there?" _Vaggie! Thank goodness._ The princess thought. She hesitated before raising her voice "Is he... is he gone?" She asked nervously. The blonde was then struck by the awful mental image of Alastor rising up behind her significant other and overpowering her. "Is he still in the room?!" She cried out to her more urgently, "If Alastor's in here with us it isn't safe-"  
"Charlie! It's alright, hon. Come on out." The warmth and power of that familiar voice... "Tell me what's happened."

Charlie emerged on her hands and knees. "Oh, Vaggie," She said, feeling flushed and relieved, "You won't believe what just..." She stopped. No one was there.

Kneeling where she was, she sensed a figure leaning over her. "Char-lie..." Her girlfriends voice disintegrated into a garbled chuckle. Spinning colours once again swarmed Charlie's vision, as the mesmerist's upside-down features came down inches in front of her nose. Charlie flinched too late as she was already fixed by Alastor's unbroken stare. He flashed the yellow knives in his mouth, the microphone leaving his lips as he signed off the supernatural imitation of Vaggie's vocals. "What a gullible little thing you are." He gloated. The air was fraught with churning static.

She felt Alastor raising her from under her arms, swivelling her round and steadying her upright with a hand behind her waist. Charlie feebly resisted and mumbled something ineffectual. Alastor brought her in inescapably closer with his arm. "The odd mishap while on air is quite inevitable, my dear." The princess mouthed a silent protest as Alastor brushed her hair behind her ear. The harsh, unfiltered radio emissions swelled, seemingly in time to his pinwheeling gaze. Lucifer's daughter was falling deeper, the cacophony and the illusion filling her head were irresistibly entwined.

"Quite the little interview I have planned!" The Radio Demon crowed, twitching with amusement as he playfully moved his head, which the blonde mindlessly mimicked, "I fully intend to..." He ran a talon about her forehead, "... peel back those intimate layers for the listeners back home. And somehow, despite all the things that I may learn, you will be the most enlightened, I think."

"No..." The malice in his words briefly reminded Charlie of her plight. "No!" She became hysterical, fighting one last time for the will to reject his power over her. The showman's eyes glitched like a broken monitor. He roughly caught her face in his hands, holding her in place before she could move. The princess grabbed his wrists, struggling fruitlessly as he was stronger. "Oho, such tenacity!" The Radio Demon guffawed, "Give the lady a hand!" A frenzied sound of applause mingled with all the static.

Charlie's eyes stung from the humiliating threat of tears. "Don't do this Al, please!" She begged him, "I'll let you stay! I'll forget everything, I'll..." Alastor hushed her. "Of course you will." He crooned, that familiar limp and fluttering sensation coming over her, "You'll forget everything I tell you to." "No... Al..." Charlie staggered slightly before the absorbing spirals, "I... Don't... Please..."

"Aren't you fatigued?" A sly curve of gold hung in space under those penetrating lights, "Drained after all this... fighting?" The royal sighed as Alastor's words washed over her and she collapsed. Charlie felt the entertainer guiding her on the way down. She sank into a soft support, and slipped away under the weight of darkness, to the mocking dissonance of recorded laughter. Her eyes closed.

...

Charlie found herself in a freezing void. She heard the scratching and skipping of an old, lumbering record player. There was barely any light. Charlie touched her temples, with a deep and suffocating awareness that something was wrong. Vintage notes strained about her in the gloom, as the pain in her forehead began. _You do something to me..._ She took a firmer hold of her scalp. _...Something that simply mystifies me..._ Her fingers tightened round clumps of hair as the pain increased. _...Tell me, why should it be? That you have the power to..._ The lyrics were briefly a murmur as the blonde brought down one hand to see redness on the palm. Her mouth felt dry.

She quivered as she looked up at her wide-eyed image in a mirror-like shape, as if part of that lightless place had been hardened and polished. A hammering in her chest accompanied the throbbing in her brain. _...Let me live 'neath your spell..._ The princess cried out, her movements suddenly no longer her own. _...to do..._ Puppet-like, she tossed her hair back. _...that voodoo.._. She sank her nails in deep. . _..that you do.._. She peeled back the skin. _...so well..._ Charlie sobbed quietly. She was transfixed by her scalp splitting as she pulled it apart, strips of flesh mingling with golden hair strands. The royal tottered under an increasing weight. Her disfigurement burned as things twisted out of the cavity. A glistening cluster of antlers emerged in the mirror, and hundreds of them splayed outwards, gory and branch-like together high over her head. Charlie felt as if her mind was on fire.

A sliver in her mind's eye revealed a vast multi-consciousness, grinning and spreading it's many black arms towards her. Charlie fell down, overwhelmed by her twisted halo. She whimpered, as the air crackled and fizzed. _...For you do,_ _something to me.._. She felt the sliding moisture of blood down her face. . _..That nobody else.._. She choked. .. _.could.._. She tried to drag herself forward, her bleeding mouth agape _...do.._. A familiar and unsettling shadow put a finger to its lips. Charlie screamed.

She sat up abruptly and looked about her, rubbing a tear-duct. Charlie repositioned herself on the sofa and saw the Radio Demon, cross-legged on a gilded chair taken from the nearby jumble. He was cheerfully stirring a coffee. "Ah, the invalid!" he cried as she dusted herself down.

She noticed that her sofa had been pulled out as well. She was lying on it by his repositioned chair like a patient with a therapist, just as if an in depth session had taken place. "Invalid...?" Charlie wondered aloud. Alastor set the spoon down in the saucer with a click. "You had a head-ache, remember? A slight... concussion." "Concussion?" Charlie touched her head instinctively, trying to remember. "Yes, an unfortunate slip on the stairs, but as your reliable comrade, I took very good care of you!"

The blonde winced as her attempt to recover this previous event only resulted in a sharp mental pang. "What about the hotel? Have the staff been-" Alastor waved his hand, "Fear not! I ensured today's operations were carried out quite smoothly!" The Radio Demon's smile widened, and his shadow subtly fidgeted on the wall behind him. "I see." Charlie would keep saying intermittently, as the showman uttered an array of further reassurances.

Charlie shivered as he talked, though she wasn't at all cold. She didn't feel unpleasant at all either. In fact, as if she were being hit by Alastor's infectious energy like a satellite, she couldn't stop smiling herself. "Thanks. What would I do without you around, Alastor?" She laughed at last, taking a coffee. The entertainer watched her whirling the white into black as he poured milk into her cup. "A toast to many more years in your company!" Alastor shouted, raising his hot drink to her. Charlie laughed again, then coughed up something black on her sleeve. She disregarded the slight stain and continued to laugh, as Alastor sipped with an uncanny gleam in his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Saw Alastor's swirly-eyes in some concept sketches and in the pilot, and consequently went "ooh".
> 
> Pray for my brother's arms and his sanity, as he worthily sacrificed his precious time to type this bollocks, whilst my injury prevails.
> 
> Also, thank you very much for reading this!


End file.
